NEWS

Deputy Charged With Sex Crimes

By Irina Titova

The St. Petersburg Times

The St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office has opened a criminal investigation into a 50-year-old former history teacher and deputy of the city’s Primorsky district municipal authority suspected of numerous charges of pedophilia.

Andrei Smirnov, who also headed a children’s society called Tsarskoye Selo, has been arrested and charged under article 132 part 3 of the Russian Criminal Code (violent actions of a sexual nature committed against an underage person,) according to the web site of the St. Petersburg prosecutor’s investigative department.

Smirnov has been charged with having committed sexual acts with a teenage boy in 2004-2005. He is alleged to have committed the acts on the premises of a school and a children’s arts center. The case materials prove that the teenage boy was regularly subjected to sexual abuse by Smirnov, the prosecutor’s office alleges.

The boy, who is now 18, only recently reported the case to the police.

During a search at Smirnov’s home, investigators found a large number of photographic and video materials of a pornographic nature featuring minors, according to the site.

The Tsarskoye Selo children’s society, where Smirnov had worked for 25 years, had more than 200 members, whom Smirnov regularly took hiking and on trips abroad during a period of several years.

The investigation is currently checking reports about Smirnov and other individuals, including foreign citizens, which allege that they committed a range of sexual crimes against minors, the prosecution said.

The prosecutor’s office has also opened a criminal case against a teacher at the Tsarskoye society, Vyacheslav Ivshukov, who has been charged under articles 134 and 135 of the Russian Criminal Code (sexual contact with a person under 16 years old; indecent behavior.)

Smirnov became a municipal deputy in the spring of 2009. He ran for the position on the United Russia party list, though he was only a supporter of the party and not actually a member of it, Ekho Peterburga radio station reported, citing a statement from the St. Petersburg branch of United Russia.

Smirnov’s case requires additional investigation, Ekho Peterburga quoted a representative of the local branch of United Russia as saying.

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